


Under The Vast Sky (that's where you'll find me)

by Barbaara_Babaar



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Deep Conversations, M/M, Mike is scared, Star Gazing, Will is scared, no kissing or banging, set a couple months after season 2 ends, they're 14, they're both scared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 06:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15382662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbaara_Babaar/pseuds/Barbaara_Babaar
Summary: It takes a lot of time to process and recover from trauma, especially when it comes in the form of being separated from your first love for a year, being possessed by an otherworldly shadow monster, or questioning your sexuality.





	Under The Vast Sky (that's where you'll find me)

> Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Mike Wheeler and Will Byers to go lie on the grass outside, in the dark, alone. Will had been traumatized beyond belief only months prior, and Mike went through a great deal of hardships as well. Putting two boys together who were so shaken up they might as well be filled with foam cannot end well.
> 
> Fortunately, Mike doesn’t think that as he lays out his puffy winter coat on the grass for Will to lie on. All he can think about is the close closeness he feels for the boy sprawled out beside him. Without even talking, he can already feel them linking together.
> 
> “Are you okay?” Will asks, because he hasn’t seen Mike in a week and–as he’s discovered–a lot can happen in a week.
> 
> “Yeah. How ‘bout you?”
> 
> “I’m okay.”
> 
> They lie still and quiet, staring up at the sky like it could swallow them, like they want it to. It’s so blue, it almost appears as though it’s been concentrated. Stars peek out from behind the musty gray-brown clouds.
> 
> Sweat is already beginning to form at Will’s back, insulated by the unbreathable fleece of the coat cushioning him. His cheeks feel unusually warm. He almost thinks it’s just the heat from the sticky Summer air, but his quick-beating heart gives it away.
> 
> Suppressed thoughts. Or Mike. Or suppressed thoughts about Mike.
> 
> While he was in the Upside Down, self-discovery was obviously the last thing on Will’s mind. Later, while the shadow monster polluted his brain, his thoughts became distant and muddy. During both of those times, Will was not thinking about himself at all.
> 
> Afterward, however, it hit him almost immediately. Just his name; Mike. Then a little more, like the feeling he got in his gut when he talked to him. Will being thirteen years old, he hadn’t really experienced many recognizable feeling for anyone before. Not until now.
> 
> Now he’s fourteen and traumatized and those feelings won’t go away even when he tells them to.
> 
> “Are things okay with El?”
> 
> Mike said, “yeah. It was weird, seeing her again after…353 days, but now I’m used to it. It’s like she never left.”
> 
> Something in his voice is unsure, even though Will knows he’s telling the truth. He and Mike have been friends long enough for him to be able to tell when he’s almost telling the truth, but not quite.
> 
> “The last few months have been good then?”
> 
> He hums quietly and turns on his side to face Will. It’s as if he’s willing to ignore the astounding beauty of the stars blinking in the dim sky to see him instead, his friend. The boy he hasn’t looked at that much for weeks, not in the eyes.
> 
> “It’s been good. Just…”
> 
> “Hard. Yeah, it has.”
> 
> Nothing had ever challenged him more than the time when the Shadow Monster infected his body like a demon and ate away at his sense of self. He shared his body, his thoughts, and his words with it. And it was colder than ice.
> 
> As he turns to face Mike, he sees him smile ashamedly and look at the pebbles sprinkled around where they’re lying. “I shouldn’t even be complaining,” he says quietly. “You had it so much worse.”
> 
> “That doesn’t mean you didn’t have it bad, too. You were off the whole time Eleven was gone.”
> 
> Will can see his stomach lurching through his striped t-shirt, can almost taste the fear he must be sitting comfortably inside of him. Mike doesn’t talk about his feelings very often, and when he does, it’s him who brings them up. He’s probably never been interrogated about them before, not that Will wants to interrogate him.
> 
> “I was off. I didn’t even wanna do anything anymore. I don’t know what was happening that made it so bad.”
> 
> “At least I knew what was wrong with me.”
> 
> Will certainly knows what he went through was horrible, but he would never try to make Mike feel like his problems were not important. He cared, he really did. Sometimes, Dustin says he cares too much about him.
> 
> “ _He’s fine!_ ” he said one afternoon after Will had sent Mike his fifteenth worried glance of the day. “ _He’s a big boy now; he can handle himself._ ”
> 
> That was the thing: Mike couldn’t handle himself, not all the time. There were days when he needed a little guidance to stop himself from hitting someone.
> 
> “You were literally possessed.”
> 
> “By the Shadow Monster.”
> 
> A look of wonder and hope appears on Mike’s face. For the first time of the night, he looks Will in the eyes. “Do you remember what happened? The night we tried to get through to you?”
> 
> Truthfully, Will barely remembers what happened that night. Only bits and pieces; enough to know what Mike’s talking about. He can still see Hopper’s scratchy face in front of his. Bright lights shining in his eyes, blinding. He can smell their warmth.
> 
> “ _Why am I tied up?_ ” He yelled that over and over again until his throat ached. Thankfully, the Mind Flayer’s didn’t. Then, “ _let me go_ ,” followed. _Let me go. Let me go. LET ME GO._
> 
> Then something happened. Something blurry, but there. His mother reminded him about something he’d drawn a long time ago with the shiny new crayons she got him for his birthday; a rainbow spaceship.
> 
> Rainbow. Rainbow. Rainbow.
> 
> Then his brother, Jonathan, with teary eyes taking him back to the day their dad left, when they built the infamous Castle Byers. “ _It took long because you were so bad at hammering. You missed the nail every time_.”
> 
> The flare of his heart translated to the tapping of his fingers. It let him talk.
> 
> Finally, Mike. Somehow, through the fog in his brain, he can see every word as if he were reading it from a book. Mike’s face crinkling like paper, tears falling like crystals from his big eyes. The lights made him glow.
> 
> “ _Do you remember the first day that we met? It was- it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends. I just felt so alone, and so scared. But I saw you on the swings, and you were alone, too. You were just swinging by yourself. I just walked up to you...and I asked. I asked if you wanted to be my friend. You said yes...you said yes. It was the best thing I’d ever done._ ”
> 
> “I remember it.”
> 
> “All of it?” He sounds scared. Excited too, but scared. As if he’s ready for something.
> 
> Will tries his best to keep staring right through Mike’s eyes even though he feels like everything in the world is closing in on him. Even the stars burn too bright.
> 
> “Enough of it.”
> 
> Swallowing the lump in his throat, he turns around so he’s facing the enormous sky once again. The clouds have since moved away. He misses Mike’s eyes, but not his fear.
> 
> It all feels too much like someone’s magical first kiss story, but instead of magic, there’s the sky. So big and clear there are no clouds to hide behind. He’s being cut open by Mike’s eyes, right down the middle. Blood soaks his shirt and stains the dirt.
> 
> Maybe it could be a first kiss story, if Will was a girl and Eleven didn’t exist. There’s no way he could love both of them. He could either be gay or straight. Will doesn’t think there’s a way to love both–not that he’s heard of.
> 
> “I didn’t think you’d remember it.”
> 
> Of course, Will would never tell him he held onto to his words through the bars of the Shadow Monster’s cage and recited them the next day as he lay in his bed. How could he forget anything that meant so goddamn much to him?
> 
> “I couldn’t forget that. It was…”
> 
> “Weird?”
> 
> “No.”
> 
> A cool breeze blows past them, rustling their clothes. A rock digs into Will’s back through the jacket he’s lying on. Mike comes closer, shivering a little too hard to be real.
> 
> “It wasn’t weird,” Will says. “It made things…a little easier, I guess. It got through to me.”
> 
> Their arms are touching now. The breeze from before is gone, leaving nothing but dry, dry warmth, like the sky is breathing on them. At least it’s breathing, because Will sure isn’t.
> 
> “Do you think it’s gonna come back?”
> 
> Fortunately for him, the sweaty, flushed feeling is gone. Unfortunately, his heart is still racing.
> 
> He’d asked himself that same question over and over again ever since the gate was closed. Will it–the Mind Flayer, the infamous Shadow Monster of the Upside Down–ever return? And if it does, what will that mean for for Hawkins, or better yet the world? What if next time Eleven can’t stop it in time?
> 
> “Do you?”
> 
> Against all better judgement, Will turns to look at Mike for the third time that night. The weariness and discomfort he sees in him is almost relieving. That means he isn’t the only one who can’t imagine what might lie in the future for them. Of course he can’t.
> 
> “I-” he swallows, “don’t think so. I hope not. Do you?”
> 
> Obviously, he knows his friend isn’t trying to make him rearrange his thoughts into something much more hopeless, yet, here it comes. The second thoughts start pouring in. Next time the Upside Down sends its worst at them–and that in itself is inevitable–Eleven won’t be able to stop them.
> 
> Obviously, he isn’t trying to make Mike rearrange his thoughts, but he can’t stop himself from saying, “I think it will.” He closes his eyes, and for a moment, sees bright, bright orange. “I feel like even though I’ve left the Upside Down, the Upside Down hasn’t left me. As long as it’s here…it could come back. It will.”
> 
> Somehow, saying it out loud calms the fragment of the Shadow Monster that’s nibbling at his bones like a happy dog in this very moment. Even though Mike’s face falls, on it appearing a look of terrified understanding, Will doesn’t think he could trust anyone else to hear him. Not like Mike could.
> 
> After almost a minute of trying to keep the concern out of his eyes, Mike sits up, hunched over slightly as he counts the pebbles on the ground. He rearranges them into a circle, two lines side-by-side, and then a name that Will can’t read. Mike sweeps away the word when Will tries.
> 
> “It’s gonna be okay,” he says meekly. It may not calm his friend’s worry, but he’s never been good with words and this is the best he can come up with.
> 
> “Is it really?”
> 
> It takes a minute for Will to figure out what Mike wants to hear. When he does, reaches down to grab his hand.
> 
> “No, it won’t. The world’s gonna end and _we’re all gonna die_. But at least we’ll be together, right? You’ll still have Eleven and…” he rubs the dirt off the top of his hand with his thumb, “me.”
> 
> The sky slowly begins to grow around them, bigger than they could have hoped for, and it feels so much less lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> the end  
> there will be no part 2  
> good day, bitches ;)


End file.
